


Forgotten

by JANJANBERRY



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Manipulation, Murder, Post-Break Up, Revenge, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-06
Updated: 2017-04-11
Packaged: 2018-10-15 07:44:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10552654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JANJANBERRY/pseuds/JANJANBERRY
Summary: After Epsilon has moved on, Tex is left alone. Now trapped in her own memories and believing she'll never escape, she gets caught in the influence of an old enemy's echo who urges her to act on her anger.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i love rvb, but tex deserved better. so, i decided to give her her own narrative after epsilon left. she's gonna deal with her own feelings and a life without church. this honestly started as a backstory for my rp blog (@blackarmoredbitch on tumblr) and it developed into something i think is gonna turn out pretty good.

“I forget you, Tex… I’m letting you go…”  
Tex could still hear the echo of his voice as she bolted upright in her bed. “Church?” She called out, unsure if he was still with her.   
Around her were the familiar grey walls she’d known in blood gulch. The cold concrete she’d once called home. It would have been comforting to see, but right now it only seemed to fill her with dread.   
She knew where she really was. She knew exactly what had happened. She just didn’t want to believe it.   
“God dammit, Church… You son of a bitch…” Her lips curled up into a snarl. “You lying son of a bitch!” She knew no one could hear her as she stood and shouted. No one could see the tears forming in her eyes.   
She was still trapped in that damn memory unit. It was supposed to be broken, it was supposed to have killed both her and Church; yet there she was with him nowhere to be found.   
A mix of crushing sorrow and burning rage toiled inside her. He’d betrayed and abandoned her. Now she was alone, with now way of getting herself. After all, who would come back for a shadow?   
As she sat on her bed, the world shifted around her. The comfort of blue base melted into the dark, metal walls of her room aboard the Mother or Invention. Of course it would bring her here. Lots of her memories had been made on that damn ship; it only made sense that her mind would bring her back.   
Her room was different from the small bedrooms the other freelancers had. Where they just had a bed and a small cubby for storage, she had an actual room complete with a closet, a desk, and even a bathroom – not that she had much use for any of it. The only feature she actually used was the closet where she kept her armor, and the bed where she would often lay awake for hours.   
Of course, none of it was actually hers. These were all Beta’s memories. She herself never went through any of this, she was just cursed to remember it all like it had. It was one of the side effects of being made from the AI for memory. Every memory she had was in crystal clear detail, clear enough to recreate her room perfectly, even down to the fine layer of dust on all the things she had been given by the director, but never used.   
Her anger suddenly grew. Church – no, Epsilon – had trapped her here in her own mind. He had left her to go insane over years of reliving a past she never had. This was the final kick in the shins. Maybe he had decided he could move on, but she hadn’t. He chased her down only to let her go for his own sake without bothering to think about her.   
Suddenly, she heard a familiar voice in her head. “That’s right, Texas. He betrayed you…” The voice hissed. “The traitor should die. You need to find a way out and kill him yourself.”   
She covered her ears, even though she knew it was futile. “Shut up, O’Malley.” She growled. “You’re not even real, you’re just a memory.”  
“I’m very real, I’m part of you aren’t I?”  
She sighed, laid down on the bed, and rolled over to face the wall. “Leave me alone.” She wouldn’t give in. He wasn’t real, and it certainly wouldn’t help her to turn back into the aggressive monster she’d become last time she was alone with him.   
“You know you can’t ignore me forever, Texas.” He taunted her. “With Epsilon gone you don’t have anyone else to keep you company. I can feel your hatred for him when I even mention him.”   
“Fuck off.” Her voice dripped with venom.   
“You’re only angry at yourself. After all, this is in your head – at least it would be if you still had one.”   
She would have put a pillow over her head, but she knew it wouldn’t do any good. Omega was always good at speaking his mind, and sometimes he could even get her to listen. He was also good at pissing her off. She needed to burn off some anger, but she didn’t want to risk running into more old memories by taking a walk or going to the training room.  
After a few minutes of letting her anger consume her, the waves of grief started to wash over her. She was alone now. Completely and utterly alone. Epsilon was gone, and the reds and blues were probably off having more adventures if they had survived the battle with Maine. Would anyone even miss her?   
She let her thoughts gnaw at her, only serving to agitate the thrashing tides of emotion already at work. Still, even though Epsilon had lied to and abandoned her, she couldn’t bring herself to hate him. As furious as she was, there was a part of her that wanted him to come back. The part that she now despised for clinging to the naïve hope that maybe Epsilon still cared. It burned her to have such a flaw in her code, but there wasn’t much she could do about it now. He’d made her like this, and there was no way to change it now.   
“Do you really think he’ll come back? How stupid can you be? He wanted to leave you behind, he’s probably so much happier now without you.”  
She didn’t respond. She really didn’t need to. He could read her thoughts whenever he felt like. No privacy, no secrets. It was no wonder the director had insisted that she got Omega.   
“You’re stuck here with your memory of me. Even if you tell yourself I’m not real, I was a long time ago.” She could almost feel his grin. “That’s the kicker, Texas. You’re torturing yourself. The more you struggle, the more you hurt yourself.”   
He was interrupted by a knock on the door, but she still felt his anger mingling with her own. She got up and pushed the button to open it. “What the hell do you want?” She snarled at the visitor.   
“Th-the director asked to s-see you, Agent Texas.” It was some soldier she had never bothered to learn the name of.   
The director. Just the mention of his name made her stomach churn, but at least now there were no real consequences to her actions. None of this was real, so what did it matter if she didn’t bother reliving the past perfectly.   
With Omega egging her on in the back of her mind, a smirk crawled across her face. “You can tell the director to go fuck himself.” It made her feel better to speak such rebellion. “Tell him that exactly.”   
“Doesn’t that feel so much better? You can spend the rest of eternity feeding your anger now. No one can stop you now. No one can stop us.” Omega was quite please with her display of aggression, she could feel it. Watching the soldier try to walk off calmly while stricken with fear of her made her own pride swell, even if it was just a hallow display to her own simulation of memory.   
Part of her was screaming, urging her not to fall into Omega’s trap again. Telling her to remember who she was, and that she was still human in some ways, but the sinister voice was stronger.   
“Maybe you should kill him. There are no consequences here. You can just start over like Epsilon did whenever he couldn’t get you to do what he wanted. You could kill all the freelancers and never have to deal with the aftermath.” He urged her. “You can get away with anything.”   
Again, there was that part of her trying to remind her that the freelancers were her friends, that Omega wasn’t real, that he was manipulating her. None of it could stop her though. She was already putting her armor on. Before putting her helmet on, though, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the glass. Her eyes were dark purple; so dark they were almost black.   
An announcement came over the PA system as she slid her helmet on. “Agent Texas, please report to the director immediately.” The familiar voice said calmly.   
She grabbed a pistol from her closet and loaded it.   
“This is going to be fun…” Omega said with delight.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's almost midnight and i still have to write a chapter for my other fic but that's okay i'm still running on that bowl of cereal i had at ten

Everyone in the hall got out of the way when they saw Tex coming. It made her swell with pride every time some nameless soldier jumped aside as she made her way to the bridge.   
When the door opened, she couldn’t help but grin under her helmet. The director’s back was turned to her. He didn’t even turn to face her before he started speaking.   
“Agent Texas, what is the meaning of the message my assistant just delivered to me?” She could hear the annoyance in his voice. Omega was almost as pleased as she was.   
“It’s exactly what it sounds like, dear director.” Her voice was full of Omega’s malice.   
“I think you need to learn some respect.” He said as he turned around, his green eyes attempting to pierce her armor.  
“No, director, you do.” She approached him and seized him by the neck, lifting him off the ground. “You manipulative, obsessive, disgusting son of a bitch.”   
Everyone jumped back in surprise. Texas had always seemed to be completely loyal to the director. He ordered her around like an attack dog to do his dirty work, and she obeyed. That was Beta, though. This version – this splinter of epsilon – she wasn’t going to be his pet. She wasn’t going to belong to anyone ever again, especially not anyone who called themselves “Church.”   
The director writhed in her grip. “Do something.” He choked out, desperately grabbing at her wrist to try and get her to release him. One soldier, following his orders, tried to raise his gun at her, but she shot first and left him dead on the ground.   
“Does anyone else want to try and stop me?” She squeezed his throat. No, she wasn’t going to kill him. She was going to exact her revenge first.   
Omega laughed in her head. “Wonderful, but do you know what would be even better? You should turn on the broadcast so the whole ship can see when you squeeze the life out of him.”   
She grinned. That was a great idea. “You,” she pointed to a crewmember that was staring at her stunned. “I want you to set up the ship-wide broadcast, and make sure you focus the camera on your precious director.” He was still struggling the get free.   
Once the camera was on her, Omega’s theatrics kicked in. “You’re going to pay, director. You’re going to pay for everything you did. If only I could do this to you in reality. I’m sure the handful of freelancers who are still alive would love to see your corpse.”  
There were some murmurs amongst the crew. They clearly thought she was crazy, that her AI was malfunctioning. Not that she cared what these simulated soldiers thought of her, they were just playback of her memories anyways.   
She threw the director to the ground. This wasn’t about Epsilon anymore. This was just blind rage surging through her veins. It electrified her, made her feel alive. She delivered a crushing kick to his stomach, taking great joy in the satisfying crack that went with it. Nobody moved. Nobody said a word. In their eyes, she was in charge now, but it was Omega pulling the strings.   
“Stand down, Agent Texas.” He said, trying to get to his feet.  
She used one foot to put him back on the floor. “I don’t take orders from you anymore.” Her heel dug into his back. “I’m going to make you suffer for what you’ve done to me, director, and then I’m going to kill you.”  
“I made you what you are. I made you unbreakable, and this is the thanks I get?” He spat. “I made you so you would never die and turned you into the greatest soldier who ever lived. Your suffering is not my fault.”  
She put some of her weight on him. “You made me into this monster.” She growled back. “You took me and you put this thing in my head to turn me into your dog. You isolated me to keep me dependent on you. You didn’t even tell my what I am. I had to find out from someone you ordered me to kill.” Her rage was building. “Connecticut’s blood is as much on your hands as it is on mine.” She leaned onto his more.   
He managed to look up at her, somehow meeting her eyes through her visor. “I only wanted to protect you.” He wheezed, struggling to breathe under her crushing weight.   
“You should have protected yourself.” She snarled before bringing her foot down on his throat.   
There was a brief moment before his body went limp where she could hear him gasping his final words. “Allison… why…?”   
And then there was the scream. The enraged scream that echoed through the bridge. Tex turned her head to see Carolina barreling towards her. “Traitor!” She cried, slamming into her.   
Tex managed to brace herself enough to remain on her feet when knocked back. “Call me what you want, Carolina. He was a menace. Just look what he’s done to all of us. What he did to you, to Wash, to CT, to the triplets, to York. He’s paid for what he did.”   
“Don’t you dare talk about my father like that, you monster.” She was gearing up for another attack. “I’ll kill you for this, Texas.”  
“Go ahead and try, Carolina. You can never win.” Omega added an extra edge to her words.  
Carolina grabbed for her pistol, but Tex was already prepared. She grabbed her wrist and twisted before throwing her across the bridge. By now the bystanders had all begun to flee in panic. There was no stopping these two now.   
Suddenly, there was a piercing pain in her shoulder, and a shower of sparks flew through the air. She turned to see her attacker, and her stomach dropped. York had come to help Carolina.   
She tried to move her arm, but it wouldn’t budge. Now it was two on one, and she was down a hand. This was going to be an interesting fight.   
“Kill them both. They’re not real, and right now they’re trying to kill you. Just shoot them. It’ll be easy. I know you can aim that pistol well enough to get Carolina while she’s still recovering, or maybe you should shoot York first and watch her crumble.” Omega was having the time of his life. He’d already talked her into one murder; it would be easy enough to get her on a roll.   
She looked at her targets, knowing she didn’t have much time to decide who to take out first, then pulled her pistol out and fired.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shoutout to my boi michael who read the first line of this fic this morning and just turned to me and said "how dare you?"

Carolina fell back as the bullet went though her visor. There was no struggle, no dramatic dying words. Nothing. Just the sound of her body hitting the floor. For a moment Omega flooded Tex with pride, but the realization of what she had just done struck when York’s scream hit her.   
Both Tex and York dropped their weapons and ran to her.   
“You finally did it. You’ve wanted to kill her for a long time haven’t you?” Omega taunted her. “You killed your dear, sweet daughter.”   
Tex got to her first, but York shoved her out of the way and went down on his knees. When he pulled her helmet off, one eye was wide open with fear, while the other had been reduced to a hole in her head. “Dammit… God dammit!” He threw his helmet off in frustration before taking her body in his arms. “Get out of here.” He hissed at Tex.  
She wanted to reach out, to try and take back the bullet she’d fired so carelessly. She wanted to scream and cry and lock herself away where she wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone ever again. “I… I didn’t…” She had no excuse. She let the memory of Omega turn her anger and grief towards Epsilon into murderous rage. She’d let herself be manipulated by the mere echo of her AI. Even if this was all fake, it felt too real.  
“I said get away!” He snapped. York, one of her closest friends, was telling her to get away from him. “You fucking monster… How could you do this to her?” His voice quaked at the end as tears welled up in his one good eye. “How could you kill her?”  
“She was… she was my…”  
Suddenly the scene melted away, and there was nothing, just a blank white plane where she stood alone. Omega was gone. York and Carolina were gone. There was no blood or bullets. Even her armor had melted away and left her in civilian clothes.   
The world around her slowly began to form into a house. She was standing in the kitchen, and through the window she could see the sun shining.   
From behind her, a small voice chimed. “Mommy, why are you crying?”   
She spun around to see a little girl with wild red hair that stuck out every which way. Her bright green eyes were full of youth and hope. It just broke her heart.   
“Mommy?” The little girl tilted her head before Tex knelt down and pulled her into a hug.   
“It’s okay, Carolina. Mommy’s here…”   
Tex had no idea where these memories had come from. She’d never been aware of them before. Perhaps it was all from the original, something in her code that had Allison’s memories – the real Allison’s memories.   
Little Carolina was confused. “What’s wrong?”  
“Nothing, I just… had some bad memories.” She smoothed down Carolina’s hair. “Don’t worry about me.”   
She must have been about four years old, back when she used to play in the dirt and splash in puddles whenever it rained. Tex could remember it through Allison’s eyes, everything about this little girl who loved to catch lizards and play under the Texas sun until her parents called her back inside, this little girl who cried on her first day of preschool until her father agreed to stay with her all day, this little girl who loved both of her parents despite the unfortunate future they would all suffer.   
“Let’s got outside and see in we can’t find some critters in the yard.” She said as she stood and took Carolina’s tiny hand.   
“But don’t you have to pack for your trip?”   
Tex knew she was referring to the trip from which Allison never returned. “I’ve decided to stay here with you.” She wouldn’t need to leave. Maybe she could live in this memory forever. She could save this version of Carolina and spend the however long she had until the memory unit gave out and killed her once and for all in this domestic life that was never really hers.   
“But you said it was a very important trip.” She seemed surprised that her mother would give up something so big for an afternoon with her.  
“It’s not that important.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have been a busy bean because of choir stuff, but i'm finally getting a chapter up. thank you for your patience.

Tex spent the rest of the afternoon with Carolina, still haunted by the images of what she’d done in the last memory. She had to remind her that none of that actually happened, that all of this was just the work of the memory unit, but she desperately wanted this part to be real. This life of chasing butterflies with her daughter and looking under logs for insects was all she wanted right now. No traces of Epsilon or the director, no pain, only her and Carolina and sunny afternoons.   
Their home was fairly rural. They had a good-sized yard, big enough for a bit of woods and a small pond on the edge of the tall grass. In one of the larger trees, there was a tree house she could remember building, Toward the end of the day when the sun was setting, She and Carolina both ended up sitting in it and watching the light leave the sky.   
“I’m tired, mommy.” Carolina yawned before leaning against Tex and looking up at her. “When do you think daddy will be home and make dinner?”   
“I don’t know.” She wasn’t looking forward to Carolina’s father coming home. The man who would become the director was one thing she had trouble remembering. All that came to mind was the wicked man whom she had killed before coming here. She wasn’t sure which idea of him scared her more; the director as she had known him, or someone more like Alpha or Epsilon.   
The man she had known as Dr. Leonard Church was cruel, merciless, and manipulative. He would stop at nothing to get what he wanted, even if it meant destroying others along the way. Someone like Alpha or Epsilon, however, that would only show her that the director was once human and hadn’t always been a monster. It would plant the seed of doubt in her mind that maybe the director wasn’t as bad as she remembered.   
As darkness crept across the sky, fireflies began emerging with the rest of the stars; their tiny lights illuminating the yard. The two watched them dance under the night sky until a car pulled into the driveway.   
“Daddy’s home!” Carolina seemed happy to see her father, but Tex’s stomach dropped. There was no avoiding this now.   
Tex scooped Carolina up in one arm, and used the other to climb down from the tree house. She would face him with dignity, even if she didn’t want to see him. For a moment she entertained the idea of taking Carolina and running off somewhere, but it might break her little heart to be separated from her father without explanation. Still, she held on to her just in case she needed to make a quick escape.   
When she walked through the screen door, the spitting image of Epsilon was taking off a lab coat. His hair was jet-black, and his eyes – now so young and hopeful rather than cold and calculating – were the same bright green. They were identical, except Epsilon seemed to always have at least some stubble on his chin and the man before her was clean-shaven. “Good evening, Allison.” His familiar southern drawl almost made her flinch. As he leaned in to kiss her cheek, it took everything she had not to recoil. “And good evening to you, cutie pie.” He kissed Carolina on the cheek.   
“Mommy and I caught a lizard today.” Carolina announced happily.   
“That’s great.” He smiled at her and ruffled her wild hair. “Did mommy finish packing?” He turned his head to look at Tex.  
“I don’t need to pack.” She avoided his gaze. “I’m not leaving.”  
“What? But you said-“  
“I’m not going.” She paused between each word.   
He was stunned. “I… I’m glad you want to stay, but you said this was important to you.”  
“I have more important things.” She smiled at Carolina. “If you don’t like it, you can leave.”  
Her answer definitely surprised him. “Are you feeling okay?”  
“I’m fine.” She set Carolina down and watched her run off to play in the living room. “I just realized that I need to be here more than I need to be out there.”   
“I understand in you’re scared, but Carolina and I will be fine. You don’t have to worry about us.” He tried to put his hand on her shoulder, but she stepped away.   
“You can’t convince me to go. If I go I will die, and I can’t do that to Carolina.” Allison’s death is what pushed him into darkness. It turned him into a cruel, merciless man who held his daughter to an impossibly high standard, and then let one of his experiments kill her because she wasn’t good enough. She couldn’t doom this Carolina to the same life as the real one.  
He looked very confused. “You’re not going to die. I think you’re just getting cold feet.” When he tried to take her hand, she pulled it away. “What’s gotten into you? You were telling me just yesterday how important being a soldier is to you, and now you’ve suddenly changed your mind. You’re not acting like yourself. “   
“I don’t want to go. I’m going to stay here with Carolina, and I’m going to make sure she’s safe and happy.” She didn’t like the tone in his voice, like he was talking to a crazy person. “If you want me gone so badly, I’ll take her and find somewhere else to raise her, but I am not abandoning my daughter.”   
Her daughter. The words were so casual, but held so much power. Consciously, she had known that Carolina was her daughter ever since she saw the information CT had given her, but she had never really considered her to truly be her child. She had always separated herself from the director’s wife, trying to prove that she was her own person and not just a shadow. Still, that instinct to protect Carolina had always lingered as a connection to someone she could never be.   
“Don’t you dare take my child away from me.” He glared at her. “I don’t know what the hell has gotten into your head, but Carolina is staying right here. If you’re so insistent on staying, that’s fine, just don’t ever try to take her.”   
There was a tense silence between them; proof enough that Tex really wasn’t Allison. “I’m going to sleep in the guest bedroom tonight. Or do I have to get your permission first?”   
“Fine, but I hope you get some sense in the morning.”


End file.
